Clients buy benefits not features!

Clients buy benefits not features. While it’s important to discuss the features of your product it is essential that you guide your client from features to benefits as I did in the example above. You can do this by using connecting phrases: The benefit of this is... This means that you’ll... As a result... Sometimes recruitment consultants’ state features, because they wrongly believe it’s a benefit, or they think the client can connect the benefit to the feature. Clients can’t always connect benefits to features, so be explicit with them. To ensure you’ve actually got a benefit, put yourself in the client’s shoes and ask yourself: “So what?” If you can’t ask “so what?”, then you’ve drilled down enough to reach a benefit. When selling a client a feature of one of your candidates, it could be that they’re a member of a debating team. The benefit of this to your client is that they’ll be able to fluently challenge senior managers during meetings. However, this is only a benefit if the client is looking for someone to challenge senior managers. Otherwise it’s just an advantage. Sometimes you’ll be challenged by your prospective clients as to why they should use recruitment agencies, or even use you as a recruitment consultant. You’ll need to identify the benefits for the client. Earlier in this section we identified the benefits of using a recruitment company, but what are the benefits of using specifically you? One example could be: “We’re a niche boutique recruitment agency who work with only a select few clients, which means you’ll have a greater access to the best candidates.”